I’m looking for a good beer fridge to clear out some space in my kitchen refrigerator.
I don’t want a dorm fridge but don’t have the budget to get anything too expensive. Can anyone recommend a good one with reasonable price tag or share your reviews?
Thank you!
Lowes quite often has great prices on floor models and units with cosmetic flaws and/or minor freight damage. I got a 14 cf Frigidaire that normally sells for $499 for $235. It came with a normal warranty. It had a minor dent where the hinge plates for the top and bottom doors attach. Very hard to see the damage, but if you opened both doors at the same time they would touch each other when opened about 45 degrees. I’ve been using it for several months and it works great. The only downside is they didn’t offer free delivery.
If there’s a college near you I’d recommend waiting until December or May when students move out. A lot of them just throw out perfectly good mini fridges.
I use a regular top freezer fridge and store my hops in the freezer. That freed up my food fridge and I was able to get rid of the little chest freezer I was using exclusively for hops.
You can get a cheap top mount on Craigslist for about $100.00. You don’t really want an ice maker in it because they just get in the way. If you’re clever you can replace the inner door panel with fiberglass shower board and drill a hole in the door for your taps.
Charlie
The problem with refrigerator freezers is that they all are frost free anymore, meaning the contents are regularly subjected to thawing during the defrost cycle. If all I had available was a frost free freezer, I’d store my hops in the fridge, at least the temperature remains more or less constant. Just one person’s viewpoint.
You can kill the defrost circuit. It’s on a controller board usually located in a panel above the lower compartment. Google your fridge make and model and look at its electrical diagram. It will be pretty obvious how to do it.
Charlie